An important characteristic of X-radiation sources is brilliance, thus justifying for example the development of complex machines such as synchrotrons. The simplest way of producing X-radiation is obtained by Bremsstrahlung on the basis of a low-energy continuous electron beam. Unfortunately, a non-relativistic beam such as this interacts strongly with the anode of the device, thus giving rise to the production of X-rays at a large solid angle. The thermal problems associated with this interaction are solved by employing a revolving anode known from the prior art.
An improvement can also be afforded by focusing the beam on smaller zones, thus reducing the total flux of X-rays produced, but improving the brilliance since the source becomes more pointlike while improving the thermal budget. The radiation nonetheless remains poorly directional because of the low energy of the electrons.
Microcapillary techniques can retrieve the X-rays in a solid cone of the order of 10 mradians maximum and can increase, to some extent, the brilliance of such sources.
More sophisticated sources exist and are known from the prior art.
Thus, it is known to accelerate the electrons to several MeV before rotating them in a space where they interact with a wire. The advantages of this solution are three-fold since it offers:                a source of small spatial dimension, representative of the size of the wire in one of its dimensions and a good thermal budget,        good directivity due to the high energy of the electrons which focuses the electrons in a solid angle like 1/γ where γ is the relativistic factor,        good yield as regards total flux since the electrons that have not participated or have participated little in the interaction are recovered during the following revolutions.        
Another device of the prior art is based on the same principle, but the wire is replaced with a packet of optical photons and the X-radiation is then produced by the inverse Compton effect. There is no longer any thermal constraint since the interaction occurs in vacuo, but it is necessary to recycle electrons and photons to obtain a good level of X-production because of the low yield of the interaction.